In his final official handle as mayor, Ron Nirenberg described how a worldwide pandemic shook the one of many nation’s most impoverished massive cities into motion on addressing poverty — and formed his personal method to management for no matter comes subsequent.
To a Metropolis Council chambers filled with associates and supporters on Monday, Nirenberg stated the function has taught him a lot about guiding ideas.
“In brief, you wager the farm on the potential of the folks,” he stated.
Simply weeks earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic, Nirenberg stated that San Antonio was celebrating low unemployment and a booming quarter for financial growth.
That’s even though some 60,000 of town’s residents already relied on help from the meals financial institution, and one in 4 of town’s adults have been thought of functionally illiterate — issues that exacerbated quickly as soon as the pandemic hit.
To Nirenberg, who was simply 40 when he was elected mayor, the conclusion was stark.
“Regardless of all the expansion and financial progress … far too lots of our residents had been left behind,” he stated. “We have been confronted with a fairly blunt query: The place will we go from right here?”
Inside months, Nirenberg’s administration would ask voters to approve gross sales tax referendums to increase town’s free Pre-Ok program, launch an unlimited workforce growth effort generally known as Able to Work and assist fund town’s first bus fast transit route.
Shortly after that they’d additionally search $150 million in bond cash to construct inexpensive housing.
All advised, the investments totaled roughly $2 billion inside two years, Nirenberg stated, and voters authorized them overwhelmingly.
San Antonio’s poverty price and housing insecurity have since outperformed the nationwide tendencies, main him to consider that “the trail to financial mobility” is a mixture of housing affordability, training and workforce coaching and transportation entry.
That, plus a neighborhood that’s compassionate sufficient to make these sorts of investments in its personal residents.
“Hardly ever do you get to decide on your battles in life, however you possibly can select the way you reply,” Nirenberg stated. “It’s comforting to know with all my coronary heart that in San Antonio — we all the time reply collectively.”
“It makes leaving this workplace simpler than you’d assume.”
As for what’s subsequent, Nirenberg has shot down questions on a handful of potential bids for greater workplace.
However he’s continued elevating cash all through his last months in workplace, used the latest Remaining 4 to make inroads with Democratic leaders throughout the nation, and spent some marketing campaign funds on what seems to be a ghostwriter for a future e book.
A political future?
Rumors have been swirling for months about what would possibly come subsequent for Nirenberg, who managed a radio station at Trinity College earlier than operating for public workplace.
He unseated an incumbent to grow to be mayor, then took workplace with a distinctly apolitical method to the nonpartisan function — steering town away from concepts like defunding the police that made progressive leaders in Texas’ different city facilities much less widespread.
Close to the tip of his time period, nonetheless, Nirenberg, now 48, went full Democrat, hitting the marketing campaign path for Vice President Kamala Harris, serving to approve a controversial abortion journey fund and sharpening his criticism of state GOP leaders.
On the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce gala roughly per week in the past Nirenberg joked that by the subsequent time he addressed the group, it may very well be with a distinct political title — and he vowed to maintain discovering methods to serve the neighborhood.
However so far as formal plans after leaving workplace, thus far he’s solely introduced a part-time instructing gig at Trinity College this fall.
Nonetheless, as Nirenberg prepares for a possible future within the hyper-polarized world of partisan politics, he continued leaning into his assaults on Republican insurance policies popping out of the state and federal authorities in Monday’s speech.
“We proceed to climate the state and nationwide politicization of illness, gender, autonomy, and the easy freedom of selection,” Nirenberg stated. “We need to reside our lives how we need to reside them — and till all are capable of achieve this, the work should proceed.”
Powerful transitions
His successor, Gina Ortiz Jones, didn’t seem like within the viewers.
Nirenberg stayed out of this yr’s mayoral race, to the irritation of some native Democrats who stated he ought to have helped the progressive Jones in her race in opposition to the GOP-aligned Rolando Pablos.
She went on to take a convincing 54% of the vote, and Nirenberg stated Monday he wished her effectively, and would assist Jones and the brand new council transition into workplace.
He additionally reminded these within the viewers — which included many political insiders who’ve been skeptical about Jones — that how a candidate campaigns doesn’t essentially replicate how they’ll method the job as soon as they get there.
“In 2017 it will have been troublesome to face earlier than you and declare that I knew with any certainty what the subsequent eight years would maintain,” Nirenberg stated. ” .. What that basically means is political campaigns seldom replicate the entire future that lies forward.”
Among the many newcomers elected this yr is Nirenberg’s former chief of workers, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, who will take over the District 8 council seat Nirenberg as soon as represented.
She was among the many dozens of division heads, council members and Metropolis Corridor staffers Nirenberg referred to as out by title in Monday’s farewell speech to thank them for his or her service over the previous eight years.
Afterward Nirenberg unveiled his already accomplished portrait, which can hold within the metropolis’s Municipal Plaza subsequent to dozens of different previous mayors.
It was painted by Lionel Sosa, a longtime San Antonio political advisor who can be a famend portrait artist.
“It’s simply such an honor to have the ability to paint a portrait of this man, as a result of to me, he’s the proper instance of the right public servant that we must always look as much as,” Sosa stated.
Turning to the mayor, he added, “Ron, you, you’re an inspiration to everybody in our metropolis.”
